Snow
by swaps55
Summary: A cold gust of air wakes him up, slipping in under the sheets and raising goosebumps on his skin. The pillow next to him is empty but still contains traces of warmth, the covers on her side of the bed kicked back with the same reckless abandon she applies to dirty dishes and discarded laundry.


A cold gust of air wakes him up, slipping in under the sheets and raising goosebumps on his skin. The pillow next to him is empty but still contains traces of warmth, the covers on her side of the bed kicked back with the same reckless abandon she applies to dirty dishes and discarded laundry.

The wood floor cups his feet like ice and he can't find his shirt, so he settles for snatching a new one out of the suitcase. His first stop upon leaving the bedroom is going to be the thermostat, because he's too bleary to realize a heater doesn't blow wind through the house when it's off.

The living room is dark and silent, wine glasses from the night before still on the coffee table, small pools of red in the bottom of each, the reflection from the glass doors lighting them up like jewels. Here he finds the source of his problem. The balcony doors, sealed tight when they'd gone to bed, had been thrown open. Outside a snowstorm has kicked up, a torrent of white flakes reducing English Bay to a dull, grey smudge. A steadily thickening pad of snow already covers the balcony, spilling into the house under impatient puffs of air.

On a whim he heads to the kitchen and checks the cabinets, smiling when he sees his mother's treasured stash of hot chocolate in its usual place. He runs water from the tap into a water boiler and grabs two mugs from the cabinet. It's been years, but he still remembers where everything is. While the water heats he finds his jacket thrown over the arm of the couch and shrugs into it. With no slippers anywhere to be found he tugs on his boots but doesn't lace them, grumbling to himself as he relearns what it's like to live somewhere with a climate, and not tightly controlled life support systems. When steam whistles from the water boiler he pours it over the coca granules he's measured into each cup.

The loose leather of his boots flops along with the laces as he makes his way to the open door, balancing each mug as he leans against the door frame, fully exposed to nature's assault. The first signs of dawn are bleeding into the horizon, a soft spread of muted light pushing against the steel grey clouds. He can hear the water churning in the bay, lashing the shore with icy fingers.

For a moment he is flooded with memories of snow fights and sleds, of Jackson Horry and Maddy Gaiserowski and their woeful attempt to mod a BB gun with a cryo chamber he'd pilfered from his father's gear so they could shoot snowballs. Those days feel like another life time, one that might even have been a dream.

To the left of the door a fuzzy blue blanket juts out from the rickety old swing that his parents have been vowing to get rid of for years but never do. Under it he can make out the outline of slender toes.

"Shepard?"

The blanket shifts and the swing creaks as it sways a little. "Mmmphf?" comes the muffled reply. He eases on to the balcony, suppressing a shiver. She has wrapped herself up in the blanket, an old shaggy one from the basket on the floor next to the couch. He hasn't seen that one since he made out with Maddy under it three days before the suits from Jump Zero had shown up at his door. A flush creeps up his neck. She's drawn it tightly around herself until she's all but swallowed by fabric, sparing just enough to loop over her head like a cowl. Strands of red hair that refuse to stay tucked behind her ear peek out from underneath. There is an awning over the swing to keep the snow off her head but it doesn't daunt the wind, which blows errant flakes that alight on her nose and cling to her hair so that it instead if floating around her face in wisps it hangs stringy and damp around her cheekbones.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks, the sight of her distracting him from the cold blowing through his unlaced boots. His jacket is thin and light, designed for fall and not the dead of winter, but it's all he brought.

"It's snowing," she replies, head canting to the side and an almost confused look crisscrossing eyes the color of the bay. Normally they are a sapphire blue, but today they reflect the same slate grey of the storm.

A smile curves his lips and he offers her a mug. One arm creeps out from under the hem of the blanket to take it and she scoots over to allow him room, shifting her legs to the other side so she can lean against him as he settles into the newly vacated space beside her.

"There's my shirt," he says, and she makes a face. She's somehow managed to misalign the buttons and the sleeves are so long she's slid her fingers through the gap at the wrist. He never imagined he'd see her like this, so human and unarmored and so very _his_ that for a moment it takes his breath away.

"Can't have it back," she replies with an impish smile. He snatches the blanket out of her grip and pulls one side around his own shoulders, drawing her close so that the back of her shoulders rests against his chest. She nestles her head into his neck, carefully tamping her side of the blanket back down to fence out the cold. She hasn't bothered with shoes, and he catches a quick glimpse of garnet toenails before they're hidden again under the fleece.

He swallows a chuckle, because he still can't believe it. Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel, first human Spectre, denouncer of crotchless clothing and anything that comes close to heeled shoes, paints her nails. He doesn't know if she does it for him or just because she likes it, and he doesn't ask. He'll live in the illusion.

"Thanks," she says, nodding towards the hot chocolate. The smile she offers is for him, but her gaze still follows the snow, a mesmerized, childlike expression on her face that is completely new to him. "It never snowed on Mindoir," she says after a thoughtful pause.

He almost mentions Noveria, and the hellish blizzard in the Aleutsk Valley, but doesn't. The whole point of this diversion is to leave all of that behind, tuck it away in a drawer for a few days at least where it can't haunt her dreams. The dark hollows under her eyes make him think it isn't working.

A shiver runs through her body, and he rubs her arm for warmth. Tucked this closely against him he can feel the sharp angle of her shoulders, how small and slender she is under the blanket. She is too thin, nothing but sinews pulled tight over bone, the rope of her spine a pattern of spiny ridges. Three long, thin rents across her cheek from Saren's talons have faded into angry red lines, but not vanished. In the aftermath of the Citadel she went through every debriefing, every memorial, every ceremony, with Saren's – _Sovereign's – _brand tattooed across her face. So much got said and done about Shepard the hero, but no one has bothered to look after the woman underneath, see if she's made it through the ordeal unscathed.

She grips the mug with both hands and raises it to her lips, steam curling above the rim. The blanket slips a little in defiance of her carefully wrought fortifications. He tugs it back in place.

"You know, I probably should have looked at a calendar before I decided this was a good time to show you Earth," he says. "We could have gone to Australia where it's warm this time of year."

"You wanted to see home," she says, sparing one hand from her mug to squeeze the hand he has draped over her shoulders. There is an unspoken _and so did I _that sends a thrill through him.

"In the summer this place is incredible," he says, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes. "Everything's in bloom, boats of all shapes and sizes in the water. The Celebration of Light makes the whole sky explode in color, and HQ sends a squadron out to open the ceremony with some trick flying that would even make Joker pause. You've never seen anything like it."

"It sounds beautiful."

"Yeah," he says, playing with a strand of her hair. "Someday I'll bring you back here to see it."

"Good," she says with a measure of satisfaction, as comfortable as he is in the lie. The victory over Sovereign feels hollow, pointless, a mere postponement of the inevitable. It could be years before he sees Vancouver again. Another lifetime. He doesn't know how many lifetimes he has left.

As long as they're with her, it doesn't matter.

He gazes out into the opaque half-light of a cold sun, swirling flakes transforming the well-known landscape into something strange and unfamiliar. "I guess the snow puts a pretty big damper on our plans.'

She snuggles closer to him. "This is better."

He brushes his lips against her temple, heart racing when her body ripples with a soft sigh. "You're right," he says, wishing the _Normandy _isn't waiting for them, wishing he can trap them in this moment forever. "This is better."


End file.
